Cuban Minister of Trade and Foreign Investment Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz noted that during Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung's visit to Cuba in March this year, the two countries had pledged to further their traditional friendship as well as cooperation in economics, trade and investment.

To realise this, both sides had signed a medium-term economic co-operation programme, identified specific targets and set co-operative orientations for the next five years towards diversifying economic and trade ties, he added.

Reviewing the implementation of agreements reached at previous meetings, Minister Malmierca said that bilateral trade is yet to match existing potential, although good progress has been made recently.

The Vietnamese and Cuban Governments, therefore, are determined to lift economic ties to a higher level and bring them in line with the fine political relations between both countries, he said.

Viet Nam is Cuba's second largest trade partner in Asia as also its leading rice supplier, the minister said, expressing his hopes for more Vietnamese investments in oil and gas, tourism, and industrial sectors.

At the meeting, Vietnamese Minister of Construction Trinh Dinh Dung reiterated the nation's consistent stance on supporting the Cuban people's revolutionary cause. He also highlighted Cuba's valuable support for Viet Nam's past struggles for national liberation as well as its ongoing development.

He said that Cuba's new economic policies and measures, especially its Foreign Investment Law and preferential investment policies for the Mariel Special Development Zone (ZEDM), would lay a firm foundation for attracting foreign investment and realising the island nation's socio-economic development goals. — VNS